RUTH Davidson has put her credibility on the line by declaring the Tories will replace Labour as the main opposition party at Holyrood.
The Scottish Conservative leader said that a raft of internal and external polling and the reaction from voters across the country had convinced her that she would lead her party to a historic second-placed finish behind the SNP in today's Scottish Parliament election.
She has said that her party had worked out the level of support it would have to achieve to beat Kezia Dugdale's Labour, and, despite opinion polls suggesting the race between the parties is too close to call, claimed "we're there".
READ MORE: Ruth Davidson in coast-to-coast appeal for first-time Tory voters
Ms Davidson added: "I’ve said from more than a year ago that I want us to have our best campaign ever, more seats and more MSPs than ever before. We are well on course for that."
Asked what evidence she has to suggest she will come second, she said: "External polling, internal polling, on the doorstep and around the country - the whole shebang."
Ms Davidson made the claim on a frantic final day of the campaign, with voting underway from 7am today. At a Tory event in Edinburgh there was a noticeable lack of Conservative branding, with placards instead emblazoned with the party leader's name and her pledge to hold the SNP to account.
She later sent out an e-mail to voters, in which she claimed Labour "hasn’t landed a glove on the SNP" in nine years and highlighted her vocal opposition to a second referendum in an overt pitch to those who oppose independence. She added: "Your vote will decide who leads Scotland’s opposition to Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP: me or Kezia Dugdale."
Meanwhile, Scottish Labour made a last-minute plea to voters to back its flagship policy of raising income tax to block spending cuts imposed by Westminster and pay for an investment in public services.
READ MORE: Kezia Dugdale insists Labour 'really upbeat' as campaign enters final days
Ms Dugdale said: "If you want to stop the cuts, you need to vote for it by using both your votes for Labour. We can make our commitment to stop the cuts because of the choice we have made to use the powers to make fairer choices on tax."
However, she found her message partially overshadowed by the ongoing anti-Semitism row engulfing her party. A Renfrewshire councillor, Terry Kelly, became the latest to be suspended pending an investigation after offensive blog posts in which he ranted about a powerful "Jewish lobby" emerged.
Ms Dugdale admitted that the controversy was having a negative impact on her campaign, saying it had "unquestionably had an effect" and is being raised by voters on the doorstep.
But she insisted her party would not be overtaken by the Tories, as she hit out at leader Ruth Davidson's use of constitutional arguments during the campaign.
The Scottish Labour leader added: "If we believed every word of the opinion polls, Ed Miliband would be prime minister, so I can spend that last few hours of this campaign talking about the opinion polls or I can put my trainers on and go out and campaign for every last vote, which is what I am going to do.
"There is something like one in four people in the country still to make up their minds."
As the battle for second place became increasingly bad tempered, one senior Labour source accused Ms Davidson of arrogance following her latest comments and mocked her recent photo opportunities.
The insider said: "Hubris is a terrible thing. Maybe it was the rarefied atmosphere in that helicopter, or sitting on the back of that buffalo."
The latest opinion poll, conducted by Survation, found that while Labour was narrowly ahead in the constituency section of the vote, the Tories had a narrow lead in the crucial regional vote by a margin of only one per cent.
READ MORE: Tories have 'one in four chance' of beating Labour, according to election forecast
As the Conservatives enjoy more concentrated pockets of support, the party is also seen as more likely to win constituency seats with Labour expected to rely solely on regional votes to win MSPs.
Alex Salmond, the former First Minister, said on his radio phone-in that Labour is "falling so fast it they are catching up with the Conservatives' low rating" but predicted that the Kezia Dugdale would remain the leader of Holyrood's second party.
Asked whether he believed the Tories would overtake Labour, he said: "If you want a guess, I think Labour will hold on to second, but actually, Nicola and her team have been spending most of their election concentrating on who's going to come first, not second."
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